A Game of War
by Katarite
Summary: Harper and Trance share a game of cards.


A/N: This is set a few weeks after "The Dark Backward". It can, and should be, considered a part of the same universe as my other story "Welcome the Dawn", but reading that is not necessary to understand this story. Thank you, and as always, reviews are appreciated!

A Game of War

By Katarite

The Empress of Jewels; Trance drew it with a silent flourish, placing it face up on the worn and scratched metal table in the Eureka Maru's makeshift mess between stacks of soiled lunch dishes and cans of Sparky Cola. It was a good first draw in the game of War. The Empress was the strongest of all cards, save one. Only the Ace could trounce her. Harper placed his card beside hers. It was the Three of Spanners. She reached out with a golden hand and swept both cards towards her. Harper's unreadable expression did not change. He spared only a cursory glance towards the cards, his eyes otherwise occupied in a study of her person. She could see the questions inside them, all his suspicions. She met his gaze and gave him a small but friendly smile. He knew something was wrong. The problem with Harper was that he thought too much.

Trance drew the Seven of Lances and placed it before her. She knew that Harper would take this hand, and the one right after. She had already played through those hands in her mind before she made the conscious, and difficult, decision to live in the present. It was a minor miracle that she did not already know the outcome of the game, for her visions and insights were nearly impossible to control. Harper was not the only one getting used to the new Trance. He had no way of knowing that she was still learning how to wield the power within her grown-up body, and was frightened by its strength. She would never tell him. He would never understand.

They played for a few minutes in silence; the wins and losses going back and forth like two titans pitting their strength against one another. He watched her, she watched him. He was wary of her. Not in the way he had been when she'd first come back, but his trust in her was faltering. A change had come over their relationship, one she had initiated and thought to be subtle enough to escape his notice, but Harper often proved to be smarter than she gave him credit for. He was certainly the most intelligent (but certainly not the wisest) organic she had ever met. She had placed a shield between them, an invisible shield, but somehow he could see it.

When she first came back she had risked everything, placed the entire Universe in jeopardy, for him. What that meant, she did not know. She did know that she could never explain the significance of her actions to him; he could never know her sacrifice. To tell him about her people and their plans would be a death sentence, likely for both of them, and she wanted him protected. Her sisters would scorn her. Seamus Zelazny Harper was merely an Organic. He was expendable, they would say. They were wrong. Everything inside of her told her so. Somehow, in some way, Harper was important. However, she feared that her judgment was solely based on emotion and not logic.

She had fought against his paranoia and distrust to regain their friendship, and it had worked. It had worked better than she anticipated it would. She had not known the extent of it until a few weeks ago when she had been forced to accept the fact that in order to move forward with her plans, the plans of her people, she might have to sacrifice him. Seeing his death, even in another timeline, and being responsible for its happening had torn her heart to shreds. Never before had she felt a loss so strongly, and she had lost a great deal in her long life. It had been almost more than she could handle. Harper was too close to her heart, and he could not be allowed any closer. He was important, but the plans of her people were more so.

"Why do they call this game War? It's a game of luck. Why don't they just call it Life? It would make more sense. You put yourself out there, sometimes you win, sometimes someone bigger comes and stomps all over you, and you repeat the cycle over and over again until boom, you win or lose. Probably lose. That's life, not war. War involves strategy," Harper said. Trance shrugged her shoulders and drew another card. His Emperor of Jewels defeated her Captain of Hearts.

"If you think about it, war isn't really about strategy. Perhaps in the smaller sense it is. You build troops, you train them, you consider all the possibilities, and make all sorts of plans, but when you look at the bigger picture, it still comes down to luck, doesn't it?"

They each laid down a card with the same face, so below hers she placed two more faced down and turned over the Three of Lances on top of them. That was too low. Harper would win again, unless, unluckily, he drew a two. He followed the same ritual and turned over the Five of Spanners, earning himself the pile. Her hidden cards, now overturned, were valuable face cards, a captain and an emperor. Had she won, she would have taken from him an ace. Her insight into probabilities afforded her no advantage in a pure game of chance; she was losing.

"That can't be true. It would mean that life and war were the same thing." She laid down an ace, taking from him a captain. It wasn't the highest of cards, but at least it was something.

Before she could answer, she was distracted by a vision she had been trying in vain to hold at bay. _The Magog Worldship was before her, massive an unyielding. She could feel the power of the Abyss emanating from it. She was alone on Command. Around her klaxons blared, acrid smoke poured out of crevices in the walls. The scent of burnt wiring filled the air, and somehow she knew that everything was lost if she did not act quickly. She did not know if she could do it, but she had to try. Summoning all the power within her, the light she had been afraid of for so long, and focusing it on the bonsai tree before her she reached out to those she loved and began to say in a soft voice in case this did not work, "Goodbye…"_

She banished the vision to the deepest recesses of her mind with some effort. Harper was left oblivious to her sidetrack. Though her visions were as real to her as the game before her, she did not allow them to change her demeanor. Hiding the nature of her powers was second nature to her now. The clarity of the vision frightened her. Though it was still a ways off by the Human definition of time, it meant that there were many roads that would lead them to that point; too many to count. Not that it mattered to her in the end. Even if she could find another path and lead her friends to safety, for her at least, every road led to the Abyss. She would have to face it, as she was born to do, and she would have to win. To defeat the Abyss and bring light to the Universe was her only purpose in life. The battle was her reason for existence. Whose side would luck be on then?

"Perhaps they are the same thing," she said.

"And I thought _I_ was cynical." She did not reply. A few more hands went in her favor, and then, inevitably, his high cards came into play, decimating her pile. The silence stretched on uncomfortably. A change had come over Harper's face. His expression was pensive, and his brow was furrowed the way it usually was when he was wrestling over a tough issue, or a puzzle he could not solve. She let him be, focusing her attention on the game. His ace took an emperor from her. The ace. The trickster. It appeared as the smallest whole number, and yet wielded power over those who should have been its betters. He swept the cards into his pile and caught her eyes with his, ready to speak.

"Listen Trance, are we okay? Did I do something stupid like I usually do? If I did, I'm sorry. Heck, I can't even remember what it was!" She looked down at her hands, one resting atop her stack of cards, the other, palm flat, on the table beside it. There was pain in his voice, mixed evenly with the dismay. Her silence would only make him worry more, but what could she say? She could not tell him that by the standards of her people she cared about the organics she lived with too much, and him beyond all decency. She could not tell him that she was afraid she loved him, and that the plans of her people were, and had to be, more important that that love. She took a deep breath after a few moments and looked him in the eye saying,

"You haven't done anything, Harper. I am not upset with you." It was not an explanation though she knew that is what he wanted. He seemed relieved none-the-less. They played on in silence for a few moments. Her pile was shrinking steadily. She had lost track of the cards and could not remember what had been played and what hadn't. She only had a few left and did not know whether they were high or low.

"So, we're still friends?" Harper asked. She could remember him asking the same several times before. She smiled softly and gave him the reply she always reserved for such questions.

"Best friends." Harper returned her smile and she had to force hers to remain. She turned over another card absent-mindedly, finding herself lost in thought. In her heart he would always be her best friend, but they would grow apart. She had made certain of it. The future was becoming increasingly more dangerous as the plans of her people began to come to fruition. She knew she would have to watch Harper die again, how many times more she did not know, but when it came down to that final battle between herself and the Abyss, her heart could not be with him. She was destined to rule her people and the Universe. No matter how important she felt Harper was, he was still just an organic.

"_Insignificant,"_ she heard the voices of her sisters say in unison, shadows of a speech given to her some untraceable time in the past. _No, not insignificant_, she thought, but then gave herself a mental shake. _I am the Fire Princess_, she told herself, _I am the oldest and brightest star in the universe. I must put my feelings behind me, my friendships behind me, my love behind me and move forward. There is no room in our plans for love._

"I win." Harper said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. She brought his smiling face into focus and gave him a smile of her own.

"Good game," she said without looking at the winning cards, "You should get to work. I'll clean up."

"Okay, see you at dinner?" She nodded, and he got up from the table, heading off the Maru in is usual, quick gait. She sighed and stood, but as she reached out to begin collecting their lunch things her eyes fell on the last two upturned cards, her card was the Empress of Hearts. On his side, resting slightly atop hers, hiding the Empress's face was the Ace of the same suite.


End file.
